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www. pdst. ie History and Transition Year Helen Sheil

www. pdst. ie Broad educational experience DES: clear distinction between TY and LC programmes However, SKILLS developed in TY (e.g. critical thinking skills, or identifying and using a wide range of sources) can be very useful for LC History Forming units of work for Transition Year History

www. pdst. ie Promotion of activity-based learning, research skills and self-directed learning Opportunity for students to use and develop digital media and IT skills The emphasis is on the process of learning rather than the content Opportunity to incorporate appropriate literacy and numeracy tasks Varied forms of assessment Forming units of work for Transition Year History

www. pdst. ie Guidelines on developing Transition Units: 20cycle%20review/TU_info_art.pdf 20cycle%20review/TU_info_art.pdf Transition Year – helpful sites

www. pdst. ie Many students and teachers have a strong interest in music – can be used as a springboard into worthwhile historical study Students can be encouraged to ask parents/ grandparents to suggest songs that dealt with current affairs in their youth YouTube is a rich source of material Books such as Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute analyse well-known protest songs. Using songs in TY History

www. pdst. ie Song: Skibbereen Sinéad O’Connor sings Skibbereen on the Long Journey Home CD Also available at watch?v=6VWPzsPqcHQ watch?v=6VWPzsPqcHQ

www. pdst. ie Suggestions for Skibbereen (or any song) Listen to the song (aural literacy) Comprehension Q&A (teacher/student?) Fact or fiction? Songs as sources? Research the context of the song, and use it as a starting point for work on themes such as the Famine, emigration, the emigrant experience in America, local history… Link to other sources such as the Skibbereen evidence given to The Devon Commission: 1/page/ /page/ Encourage students to find and use other related primary and secondary sources

www. pdst. ie Billie Holiday sings Strange Fruit at Link the song to the famous photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, available at iconic-lynching-in-the-north/ iconic-lynching-in-the-north/ Interesting 13-min NPR broadcast about the lynching and the song available at tion=1&t=1&islist=false&id= &m= tion=1&t=1&islist=false&id= &m= Strange Fruit

www. pdst. ie What songs would you use? Are there contemporary protest songs? Ask your students to suggest songs from the past and/or present. Why is music so powerful? How did dictators such as Hitler and Stalin use/abuse music? Songs

www. pdst. ie TY offers time to explore the use of photographs as historic sources. Analysing photographs is a way of developing students’ visual literacy. Students can create photographic sources. Using photographs provides opportunities for out-of-school activities, cross-curricular links and research skills development. Photographs and TY History

www. pdst. ie Teach students where to locate photographs of historical interest. NLI digital archive at photographs.aspxhttp:// photographs.aspx County library collections, e.g., orkphotographs/ orkphotographs/ International collections, e.g., al# al# Conducting searches using Google-Images Photographs – suggested activities

www. pdst. ie Handover of Custume Barracks, Athlone, 1922

www. pdst. ie Get students to research old photographs of their own areas/families Can they re-take a similar scene or family group? Explain the similarities/differences. Photographs – suggested activities

www. pdst. ie True/false worksheet on the value of photographs as historic sources (p. 37) Explore some of these points in more detail, e.g. investigate historic fakes Photographs – suggested activities

www. pdst. ie Close analysis of a photograph Observe-analyse-interpret (p.38)